Revolution on Broadway: Inside Hip-Hop History Musical ‘Hamilton’

“I feel about 100 pounds lighter!” says Lin-Manuel Miranda. Less than a week before Hamilton‘s opening night on Broadway, the hip-hop-infused musical’s playwright, composer, lyricist and star is hanging out in his dressing room at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, celebrating the fact he’s finally done revising the mammoth script – well, almost. “I only have one line to add,” he says, “and that’s the last thing I’m going to do.”

The production, which traces Alexander Hamilton’s life story in soaring melodies and quick-witted rap verses, has already connected in a big way: After a successful off-Broadway run, the show has earned advance ticket sales of more than $30 million and won cosigns from Stephen Sondheim and President Obama, who attended a recent preview performance. But for its creator, Hamilton still feels like a passion project. “It took me six years to write this fucking show,” says Miranda, 35. “You can only do that if you’re in love with your subject.” And those final adjustments before the curtain rises on August 6th are crucial in a show that runs nearly three hours onstage. “Shows are meals,” he says. “This is a 14-course tasting menu. Our process between Broadway and off-Broadway was, ‘How can we make it sharper?'”

The idea for the show dates back to 2008, when the playwright-star – fresh off opening his first Broadway musical, the Tony-winning In the Heights – read historian Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton on vacation. He ended up transforming Hamilton’s tale into something strikingly modern, in ways that go beyond music. Miranda, who is Puerto Rican, plays the title role; talented actors and actresses of color join him onstage in the roles of George Washington, Aaron Burr, James Madison and other long-dead white people. Daveed Diggs, of the arty L.A. rap group Clipping, turns in a particularly memorable performance as a cool, strutting Thomas Jefferson. “This is what our country looks like, and the audience accepts it,” says Miranda. “In so many ways, the people we call the Founding Fathers are these mythic figures – but they were people. I think the casting of the show humanizes them, in a way, because they’re not these distant marble creatures.” 

Miranda’s dressing room is a nerd’s paradise: A Super Mario figurine, a Hamilton bobble-head, a Red Dead Redemption disc and other cultural curios share shelf space underneath his Hollywood-lighted mirror, and the black water bottle Miranda is sipping from has a Darth Vader helmet for a cover. Outside in the hallway are several plastic bags full of period-appropriate tricorn hats. “Rolling Stone!” Miranda says with a big smile as he settles in for his interview. “I feel like Stillwater.”